© 2007 A Beer Glass Collector
Site by webs4you.co.uk
© 2007 A Beer Glass Collector
Site by webs4you.co.uk
478 City of Glass, St. Helens.
The Ravenhead Glass Company was founded in 1842. They made bottles, jars, glass tableware and, of course, beer glasses until 2001. In 1992 Ravenhead became a wholly owned subsidiary of SA Durobor NV of Belgium, one of Europe’s largest glassware manufacturers. Unfortunately, after some dubious business practices by the parent company, Ravenhead went into receivership after 159 years of continuous production. This was a devastating blow to the town with the resulting unemployment and destruction of the employees’ pensions.
The first two glasses were blown-
This is the tulip design by Alex Hardie Williamson who was consultant designer from 1947. It’s such an elegant design that it is still in production today.
The fluted tankard was out of fashion by the late 60’s. Malcolm Price tells me that he found a crateful of these glasses gathering dust in a corner of the warehouse in the mid 90’s and sent them to the BBC for use in period drama
The classic dimple mug is out of fashion today apart from, perhaps, some real ale folk. Slightly different designs can be found from different manufacturers
The conical glass was simple in design and preferred by people who didn’t like a handle. This shape, however, had a problem!
The Aberdeen pressed tumbler based on the design of a whisky glass.
The Nonik glass was produced to avoid the problem of the conical glass. This problem
was that on the assembly line and when picked up in clumps by bar staff, the contact
often caused the rim to break. The glass makers’ term for the breakage is ‘nick’.
Therefore, the inclusion of a bulge below the rim both strengthened the glass and
avoided this problem. So the no-
This is from the Barmaster range, designed by John Clappison in the late 70’s.
What were they thinking of?
This one did not fly!